Cabrini's green

With demolition of Cabrini-Green resuming after a three-year hiatus, the area surrounding the infamous public housing project is poised for another wave of construction, potentially adding another 1,700 residential units to a neighborhood that's now rapidly evolving from gang turf to yuppiedom.

With demolition of Cabrini-Green resuming after a three-year hiatus, the area surrounding the infamous public housing project is poised for another wave of construction, potentially adding another 1,700 residential units to a neighborhood that's now rapidly evolving from gang turf to yuppiedom.

Developers are drawing up plans for condo towers on four private parcels just south and west of Cabrini-Green, which, if built, could comprise 1,000 units or more. The city Plan Commission already approved one of the projects, a 26-story mixed-income tower at 729-741 W. Division St.

"Two blocks away is a Borders bookstore. I've got Starbucks in four directions," says Scott Sonoc, an architect and developer who won approval last February for the 230-unit high-rise.

And on an 18-acre parcel owned by the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), just a few blocks to the east, a development joint venture aims to break ground early next year  pending final CHA approval  on a 720-unit mixed-income project called Parkside at Old Town.

The CHA is redeveloping the Cabrini-Green complex as part of a 10-year, $1.6-billion plan to raze its high-rises throughout the city and move their occupants into mixed-income developments. Yet progress has been slower than expected, owing to court challenges from a vocal residents group that complained the authority was trying to move Cabrini-Green tenants out without finding them adequate replacement housing.

5 BUILDINGS RECENTLY CLOSED

After working through the legal thicket and negotiating with residents, the CHA recently closed five buildings within Cabrini-Green and moved residents to nearby buildings or subsidized housing elsewhere in the city. The authority plans to tear down three of those towers  at 714 W. Division St., 1340 N. Larrabee St. and 630 W. Evergreen Ave.  this summer, the first Cabrini-Green buildings to come down since 2002.

"It's bittersweet because you've got residents in there whose lives are going to be thrown into turmoil," says Peter Holsten, president of Holsten Real Estate Development Co., one of the partners in the joint venture that plans to build Parkside at Old Town. On the other hand, "our CHA families are trying to move on with their lives, and the high-rises still, unfortunately, represent what they are trying to get away from," such as crime.

Built more than four decades ago and home to 15,000 residents at its peak, Cabrini-Green had become a nationally known hub of drug and gang activity by the 1980s. To draw attention to the poor living conditions there, Mayor Jane Byrne even moved in for a brief time in 1981.

The high-rise at 714 W. Division St., left, is one of three Cabrini-Green apartment buildings slated for demolition this summer. Photo: Erik Unger

ONE PARCEL ON HOLD

The demise of Cabrini-Green's tenement towers is a beautiful sight to most developers eyeing the area, who view their prime location between downtown and Lincoln Park as a major plus.

The area is no longer the urban frontier it once was, as residential development has filled in around Cabrini-Green. Recent projects include North Town Village, a 261-unit mixed-income development along North Halsted Street that Mr. Holsten completed a few years ago.

However, the city has temporarily shelved plans to redevelop an 11-acre triangular parcel between Clybourn Avenue and Larrabee Street, which would accommodate about 400 mixed-income units.

After asking developers to submit proposals for the site in 2002, the city Department of Planning and Development quietly put those plans on hold because the William Jones Academic Magnet High School is temporarily using the gymnasium at the Near North Career High School on the property.

The school can't be torn down until Jones moves into a new gym at its South Loop campus, meaning the city isn't likely to rebid the site until 2007, says Benet Haller, project manager in the planning department.

Yet activity on the south side of Division Street is picking up. Last year, Lincolnwood-based commercial real estate developer Barry Fields acquired a two-acre property on Halsted immediately south of Mr. Sonoc's.

He's considering a joint venture with a condo developer on the site, which is zoned industrial and has frontage on the Chicago River. If city officials allow him to build condos there, he figures he could build about 385 residential units and as much as 50,000 square feet of retail space.

"We're doing our site assessments now to see how we can maximize the size" of the project, says Mr. Fields, principal of Fields & Associates Inc.

F. Ned Dikmen is doing the same thing. The publisher of Great Lakes Boating magazine, Mr. Dikmen has owned the property immediately south of Mr. Fields' for about 16 years and thinks now is the time to team up with a condo developer and build on it.

He figures the city would allow a 20-to-30-story building with about 200 residential units on the site, which has about 500 feet of river frontage  perfect for boat slips. "I really do believe it's going to be a center for excitement," he says. "I think everything is just going to start blooming."

AFFORDABLE UNITS REQUIRED

One obstacle for both sites: They sit next to a Commonwealth Edison Co. substation, replete with tall towers and unsightly power lines.

That's not a problem for Lakeland Enterprises Inc., a Chicago-based developer that has a contract to buy a property at Division and Howe streets. Alderman Walter Burnett (27th) says Lakeland President John Breugelmans, who could not be reached for comment, has approached him about building a 24-story condo project on the parcel.

Any condo project in the area, however, must include affordable housing and apartments for CHA residents. About 30% of the 720 units at Parkside of Old Town, for instance, will be set aside for public housing residents, while another 20% will be affordable housing at below-market rates, Mr. Holsten says.

Lincolnwood developer Barry Fields is hoping to build a condo project on a riverside parcel near Cabrini Green. A new wave of building could potentially bring 1,700 residential units to the neighborhood. Photo: Erik Unger